


Classic

by only_freakin_donuts



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M, Jolex TS Fic Week, This was a songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:46:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26088901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_freakin_donuts/pseuds/only_freakin_donuts
Summary: Jolex TS Fic Week Day One: Red. Songfic to Begin Again, actually.
Relationships: Alex Karev/Jo Wilson Karev
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14
Collections: jolex x taylor swift week





	Classic

_ The idea of walking into a cafe you used to go to with him, years later when you’re by yourself and craving a chai latte on a Saturday morning, and then running into him, and suddenly all the pain’s melted away as if it never happened and you’re just two old friends clothed in sunlight on a summer day… it sounds nice. For somebody else. Not for me. Not for Alex and I, certainly. _

She takes her bike down to Mr. West’s, down the hill and then back up another one. Her sneakers slide against the wet cobblestones outside, mud splashing on baby pink. The barista knows her by name and greets her, complimenting her outfit today before asking if she’s here for her usual Vanilla Chai Latte and cinnamon roll. She doesn’t stray far from the counter, waiting to hear her name called. She doesn’t expect it to come from behind her, from a voice that’s slowly faded out of a million of her memories.

“Jo?”

As if it’s actually him, here, in Seattle, in this very cafe where  _ she  _ is. Down the street from where  _ she  _ lives now, cause she certainly doesn’t live in the loft anymore,  _ their  _ loft. It’s been years since she closed the door he never came home through for a final time, left that place the way he left her. Abruptly, without warning, with all their stuff still in place. A nice newly-landed immigrant couple bought it with all the furniture and all the memories. She still thought about them, she still sent them the best of wishes; wishes that they were having just as good a time in that loft as she and Alex did for so long. 

_ They say be careful what you wish for. God grants wishes even when he’s a few years late.  _

“Jo?” he repeats, because she hasn’t turned around yet. Maybe she can pretend she’s someone else. She  _ is  _ somebody else, from the person he left. She’s better than he left her– and she wears her hair shorter and lighter now, and she wears brighter, happier colours on a regular basis, and she walks with a spring in her step, a confidence she didn’t have back then. She gave him some credit for that, but he simply lay the bottommost bricks for a house she’s built over the years. A house he’s never even been on the doorstep of.

Except right now, as he’s knocking and she’s ignoring him. 

She finally turns around, meeting his eyes. He looks older, greyer, a little shorter than she remembers him, but if possible still exactly the same. With his hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans and still the same jacket he wore years ago, the same hopeful yet undeserving expression on his face that she’s seen so many times, she feels like she’s stepped backwards thirteen years when she stepped into this cafe. 

“Alex.” 

He offers a meek little wave as he takes in the sight of her. He’s probably just as taken aback as she is.  _ Here, right now, as if.  _

“What are you doing here?” she asks, once she collects herself enough to speak again. 

The look on his face before he opens his mouth says she isn’t going to like the answer. “Eli’s touring Cornish College. He’s at some… thing, right now, some  _ no dads allowed _ thing. We fly home tonight.” 

Yup, her eyes flicker down at the floor at the mention of his son, at the mention of going back to Kansas, going back  _ home,  _ as he says. He has every right to; Kansas is his home, Kansas became his home when she stopped being his home. Eli and Alexis and  _ she who shall not be named  _ became his home instead. She wasn’t upset about it, not anymore. Or, she was trying, anyway. Trying to be happy that he had found great love and purpose in his artistically inclined college aged son and probably as equally accomplished daughter, and in…. and in  _ she who shall not be named.  _ Like a good person.

“I was going to sit in here and kill some time,” Alex says, once again pulling her from her introspection. “Would you… would you sit with me? I’d really like to catch up.”

“Yes, I’d like that.”

She surprised even herself that she didn’t hesitate more, instead chomping at the bit, immediately grabbing the opportunity to have coffee and conversation with Alex. Of all people.  _ Here. Right now.  _ And he looks so relieved, so elated, it made her smile too. 

“Cool, cool. You get your latte, I’ll get us a table.” 

He knows she’d be drinking a latte, he still knows. As he grabs them a table, pulls out her chair for her, he still knows her. Even if she had changed, he still knows her, and she still knows him too. 

The legend should go:  _ someday you’ll walk into a cafe and feel like you’ve stepped 13 years into the past as you meet eye to eye with your old twin flame. His leather jacket and his chocolate eyes send your heart through your pink sneakers, and it isn’t that everything is suddenly okay, but suddenly everything is just… different. The same colour but a different shade, faded with time, like you are. You’ll agree to sit down with him, going forth with a new chapter in your dusty old book. Old stories turn into classics, and those never truly get old. You two are a classic. _


End file.
